


searched the sand

by biblionerd07



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Getting Back Together, Guilt, Healing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27089149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: Quýnh is back from the dead, in a sense. She wakes most mornings with Andromache beside her, but they haven't been touching and they certainly haven't been talking.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 40
Kudos: 149
Collections: The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight 2020





	searched the sand

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Femslash Fortnight! The prompt was mornings or confessions but I went ahead and made it mornings AND confessions. I added the character study tag because there is a good amount of Quýnh's thoughts and adjustments to the "future"/being out of the ocean, but I promise it's not all thoughts with no dialogue.

Waking up is very different these days. For half a millennia, _waking_ was a relative state; it was a moment of consciousness, of agony, of panic and fear and desperation, before the dizziness from lack of oxygen stole her again, before death reclaimed her. Waking was soundless screams, beating her fists bloody and raw. Waking was worse than death.

Now, she wakes up to air and land and, more often than not, a bed beneath her. She hears birds, usually, and sometimes she can hear cars—motorized!—and airplanes—flying above the earth!—and light chatter from people on the street or people in the next room. If she thrashes, instinctively, she hits only softness: soft bed, soft blankets, soft body.

Andromache. Not the softest body, to be sure, because mortality cannot take away her muscle or her sharp edges, and there is always at least one blade on her body at any given time. But softer than steel.

It isn’t always Andromache beside her. Or rather, it isn’t always _only_ Andromache beside her. Andromache is never far, if she’s anywhere at all but at Quýnh’s side. But sometimes she has Andromache on one side and one of her brothers on the other.

Booker is not someone she’s known for centuries, but he became a brother quickly. They knew each other from dreams, of course, though she’d never been positive if they were dreams of an immortal or more madness. But she found him first, and he fit into the brother-shaped spot in her heart quickly and neatly. He was so wounded in a way Yusuf and Nicolò had never been, wounded in a way she needed when she first regained her life. He sleeps beside her when there is an open spot.

But there is so rarely an open spot. When Quýnh walked into the room to face her old family, Nicolò had fallen to his knees and wept at the sight of her. It was so strange to see him crying so openly, when before she’d always known him to be so much quieter about it. Yusuf had frozen, his shock keeping him immobile for whole seconds in a way she would berate him for had it happened in battle. And then he’d rushed to her and stopped just in front of her, hands reaching for her before he stopped himself.

“Quýnh,” he whispered, tears in his eyes, and she’d thought, again, it was strange. Yusuf rarely whispered unless it was absolutely necessary. They’d traded the responses she would’ve expected, but not fully. They’d immersed themselves into each other even more in the five hundred years she was gone, so that they were more like each other than they had been when she’d been taken. She’d watched Yusuf’s internal fight not to touch her until he was positive she wanted him to and thought it was strange to see him hold back from an embrace, Nicolò’s restraint paired with the love and care Yusuf had always had.

“Are you going to tell me hello or not?” She’d asked, trying to sound cool and detached but voice coming out thin and high and wobbly.

And then Yusuf had burst into tears, which was much more like him, and he’d swept her into his arms and cried against her neck. He’d only let her go twice: once for Nicolò to hold her, and once for Andromache.

So the spot beside Quýnh, on the side not taken by Andromache, is usually Yusuf, with Nicolò in his arms, the way the four of them slept for centuries. When she jerks awake in the middle of the night to their soft breathing, to Yusuf’s curls brushing against her shoulder, to the glint of metal under Nicolò’s pillow, she sometimes thinks it’s a trick of memory. They could be anywhere in the world, at any time in her history. She knows she is still locked away, still drowning endlessly, and dreaming of what she used to have.

But she only has to look around her to realize this is new. That glint of metal under Nicolò’s pillow isn’t a sabre or a dagger; it’s a handgun. And how they’re dressed is always a giveaway. The trousers they wear now are certainly different from what she’s used to.

“They are called _jeans_ ,” Nicolò told her, “but they’re not always as tight as how Joe wears them.” She’d quirked an eyebrow at him and he’d shrugged. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it when he wears them that way.”

And when she sees Booker and Nile, she knows this is different. Nile, who offered to stay awake and keep watch the first night Quýnh was back, because she could tell Quýnh was nervous about sleeping. At first, Quýnh thought the offer misguided; she did not fear anything that could be allayed by a human keeping watch. But it was, after all, humans who put her in the box to begin with. If Nile kept watch, they would not be caught off guard.

The offer itself told Quýnh so much about this newest member of their team. They all loved Nile already, even after just _one_ year. Quýnh saw that easily. Booker had known her only three days before his banishment, and he still took care to listen when she spoke. It hasn’t taken long for Quýnh to grow fond of Nile, either.

Nile never takes the spot beside her if it’s open. It may be she’s never had the opportunity, since one of the men is always there. But it’s something else, Quýnh thinks. Nile has been with the others, been immortal, for only a year now, so she is still healing from her wounds. Quýnh thinks Nile doesn’t sleep beside her because Nile is used to sleeping beside someone else, and sleeping beside Quýnh presses on that bruise.

Quýnh is not offended. Even if there’s no deeper meaning, Quýnh wouldn’t be offended. She does still thrash more than she lies still, and sleeping beside her often leads to bruises. She split Nicolò’s lip one night, reached all the way across Yusuf to do it but somehow left him unscathed, and Andy had a knee-shaped mark that took a week to vanish with her new mortality.

This morning, Quýnh wakes only to Andromache. She can hear voices outside the room, most likely in the kitchen, but Andromache will never leave Quýnh’s side if she hasn’t woken yet. She refuses to let Quýnh wake alone. It is more comforting than Quýnh knows how to admit.

“Good morning,” Andromache murmurs. Despite sleeping side-by-side for over two months now, they have hardly touched. Andromache wears her guilt like a heavy scarf, visible to everyone and choking her slightly. Quýnh hasn’t been sure she wants to be touched. Or rather, she hasn’t been sure she wants to be touched by Andromache. She is, in reality, screaming for touch, after so long without; she wants to be held, and she wants to be caressed, and she wants _contact_.

She’s had it; Yusuf either saw it on her face at some point or simply knew it on instinct. He wraps an arm around her shoulders while they sit and watch _television_ , or sometimes they watch something from the computer or the phone. He hugs her and he rubs her shoulder and he braids her hair and takes out he braid and starts again until she’s relaxed and ready to sleep, and then he presses his back against hers on the mattress. It’s easy for him, natural. He’s always been tactile, always liked to give hugs and grasp hands and offer his arm while they walked. He isn’t going out of his way to touch her, or not by much, anyway. He touches everyone else, too.

Nicolò touches her, too, though his touches are much more understated. He will lean his shoulder into hers while they read quietly together, and he will brush their fingers together when he shows her how to work the phone. He will take her hands into his while she shudders through a nightmare and sometimes he will leave the circle of Yusuf’s arms altogether to pull her into his own arms. It wakes Yusuf, she knows it does, but he never mentions it in the morning.

Even Nile touches her. She gives high-fives and friendly nudges and hip-checks Quýnh away from the last of the coffee in the pot. These are the kinds of casual touches that are part of being human, part of interacting with other people. Quýnh forgot about them completely. She remembered about hugs and holding someone as they cried. She forgot about brushing arms with a stranger as she passed by on the street, forgot about someone bumping you as they gestured while they talked. She has had to relearn those little touches.

Booker doesn’t touch her much. He’s at least a little bit afraid of her, she knows, but she can’t tell if it’s because he’s waiting for her to show she’s lost her mind fully or because he’s afraid she will finally punish him for betraying the others. But he does touch her incidentally, the same way Nile does but a bit less because he’s closed off, just generally. He hardly touches anyone.

Andromache actively does not touch Quýnh. It’s a space around them both, even as they lie together on the bed. Quýnh doesn’t know if Andromache is holding back because of her guilt or if she thinks Quýnh wants her to hold back.

Quýnh doesn’t know if she _does_ want Andromache to hold back.

“Good morning,” Quýnh echoes quietly.

They lie in silence, staring at each other while moments pass. They hear Yusuf laugh in the other room, a loud burst that means Nicolò said something dry. It doesn’t matter if anyone else finds it funny; Yusuf always will. It isn’t him putting on airs, either. He genuinely finds Nicolò’s humor absolutely delightful.

Quýnh used to groan, used to smack Yusuf and say, _stop encouraging him_ , and Yusuf would only grin and press his hand to his heart and sigh dramatically, _but it is what my heart tells me I must do_.

Quýnh thinks of that sentence right now, looking at Andromache’s weary eyes. _What my heart tells me I must do_. Quýnh was never someone who would ever be accused of following her heart. She was practical and reasonable and logical and all the other things her father wanted her to be. The only time she’d given any care to what her heart wanted was staying with Andromache after Andromache found her in the desert, and that had been logical as well as emotional.

Now she doesn’t know what’s logical or what’s not. She doesn’t know anything.

“Are you alright?” Andromache asks. “You look troubled.”

She used to pair that question with a press of her fingers to the furrow between Quýnh’s brows. Or a press of her lips to the spot, after they’d begun kissing each other.

“I…” Quýnh stops. She was going to say she’s fine. She is fine. Relatively. How can she ever not be fine, compared to where she was? How can she ever _be_ fine, after where she was? It’s a harsh limbo she’s stuck in. Quýnh shakes her head. She doesn’t know what to say.

“We should get up,” Andromache says. She moves to do so, and Quýnh finds herself shooting out a hand to keep Andromache in place.

Andromache freezes, every muscle in her body tensing. Quýnh hasn’t been touching Andromache, either. It wasn’t all Andromache keeping herself separate. Andromache swallows, and it’s audible in the silence of the room. She looks down at where Quýnh’s hand is on her arm. Quýnh can feel her start to tremble slightly. It’s almost fascinating.

“Are you afraid of me, Andromache?” Quýnh asks, voice quiet. She doesn’t expect an answer. These are things they used to joke about, to laugh and tease and spar over. Andromache isn’t laughing now.

“Yes,” she confesses in a whisper.

Quýnh doesn’t know how to react to that. “Why?” She finds her voice to ask.

Andromache is still half-turned away, Quýnh’s hand still on her arm. She doesn’t turn her face to look at Quýnh. “I gave up.”

Quýnh doesn’t say anything for a moment. They can hear the sound of Nile’s voice, rising with excitement about whatever she’s saying. She’s a passionate woman. It will undoubtedly lead her to heartbreak, over and over and over again, but she doesn’t seem the type to let that put out her fire.

“Are you afraid I will want to punish you?” Quýnh asks. Andromache swallows and still doesn’t look at her, and Quýnh nods. “You’re afraid that I won’t.”

“How am I supposed to—” Andromache makes an aborted movement to turn toward Quýnh. Quýnh scoffs and uses the hand on Andromache’s arm to pull her around.

“You have spent five hundred years hating yourself for this,” Quýnh assesses.

Andromache swallows hard again, nods. “I never stopped thinking of you,” she says.

“I don’t need this,” Quýnh tells her. Her voice comes out brittle, angry. Fury is boiling through her veins, making her lip curl, closing her hands into fists that leave her nails digging angrily into her palms. She’s leaving marks on Andromache’s skin, but Andromache doesn’t even look like she feels it.

Andromache looks up, surprised. “What?”

“Do you think this helps me in some way?” Quýnh spits at her. “Am I supposed to feel—what, flattered? I should feel grateful that I sank to the bottom of the ocean but it’s okay because you felt _bad_?”

“Quýnh,” Andromache says.

“I am here _now_ , Andromache,” Quýnh points out, all of her anger disappearing at once and leaving her deflated. “I am here and you won’t touch me. You won’t even look at me.”

“I don’t deserve to,” Andromache says.

“What do I deserve?” All of her uncertainty is gone, too. Quýnh still doesn’t know much, but her entire soul is screaming for Andromache to touch her. Her pendant is still around Andromache’s neck, as much as Andromache tries to keep it hidden away, and Quýnh _wants_. She wants that feeling they used to have, wants to lie in Andromache’s arms and feel as though nothing in the universe could harm her.

“Quýnh,” Andromache says.

“I never asked you to pay penance,” Quýnh points out.

“But I should,” Andromache says, voice trembling.

“Fine,” Quýnh says. “But do it some other way. Don’t deprive _me_ out of your guilt.” She doesn’t give Andromache a chance to argue further. She rolls on top of Andromache and bends her head down, but stops with their lips a breath apart. “There are better ways to make up for it that don’t hurt us both.”

She could remind Andromache of their old catchphrase, the one she can still hear Andromache say in her dreams. _Just you and me. Until the end_. She doesn’t remind her. Andromache won’t need the reminder. And it wouldn’t be welcome now. It would bring up more guilt for Andromache. Maybe if she hadn’t pushed Quýnh to go with her to England, maybe if she hadn’t told Yusuf and Nicolò to take their holiday—maybe if it _hadn’t_ been just the two of them, things would have been different.

Quýnh doesn’t have the space in her mind to think of these things. She has a very tightly closed door, bolted shut, for thoughts like these, and if she opens that door the thoughts will all come tumbling out and she will lose the fingertip-grip she has on sanity. She cannot open the door, not even an inch.

She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment to keep the door closed. Andromache reaches up and touches Quýnh’s face, and Quýnh sucks in a breath instinctively despite her attempts at total control over herself. Half a millennia since she’s felt that. She thought she never would again.

“Tell me what I can do,” Andromache says, lips brushing against Quýnh’s with her words.

“I’ve told you,” Quýnh says. She hasn’t explicitly, of course, but Andromache’s never needed a formal invitation. Maybe that’s different now. Maybe she can’t read between Quýnh’s lines anymore—one more forgotten, dead language.

Andromache searches Quýnh’s face. Her thumb brushes against Quýnh’s cheek and Quýnh can feel tears building in her throat. Andromache moves her hand to brush through Quýnh’s hair, tugging it lose from the braid Yusuf put it in last night before they went to sleep. She works her fingers through, leaving Quýnh’s entire body tingling.

She puts her hand back on Quýnh’s face. She holds Quýnh’s chin in one hand and raises her head to bring their lips together.

Andromache of Quýnh’s memory and Quýnh’s dreams was always self-assured to the point of arrogance. She was soft with Quýnh in a way she wasn’t with anyone else, but her softness always carried an edge to it. She took what she wanted. It always worked out in Quýnh’s favor, because part of what Andromache wanted was Quýnh’s pleasure.

This is not the same Andromache. This Andromache is hesitant, almost timid. No, Quýnh thinks as she looks in Andromache’s eyes. This isn’t fear or shyness. _Reverence_. Like watching Yusuf and Nicolò pray in the morning, different prayers in different methods but the same devotion.

Andromache is touching her like she is a fragile, precious thing. The Quýnh of the past would have bristled against this. She was a warrior, battle-tested and proven. Fragility was not something she’d felt since she came to life in the desert with Andromache standing over her.

But Quýnh feels that fragility now. Not that she is broken, but that she is breakable. She learned it in the hardest way. She’s the one trembling now, shuddering with the gentleness of Andromache’s hands on her skin and lips on her lips. For five hundred years, she felt nothing but pain and madness and fury and terror. For five hundred years, she was not human. She was completely untouchable in the most horrible, literal way.

Quýnh has come back to life an uncountable number of times. She knows what it feels like. This, now, is coming back to life. There is pain in the awakening, and disorientation while she tries to find herself. In this case, she finds herself in Andromache’s eyes, in her mouth, in her hands. There is no one who can remind Quýnh of who she is better than Andromache.

Andromache brushes their noses together softly, and Quýnh is crying silently now. Her deaths were screaming and pounding fists and blood. Her rebirth is silent tears and Andromache’s calloused hands gently wiping them away.

“I have lost myself,” Quýnh admits, almost soundless. She hardly needs to admit it. It’s logical, of course, that she lost herself. Who wouldn’t, living—and dying—through what she did? But confessing it is weakness, the thing Quýnh spent her life avoiding.

“I know,” Andromache confirms. And then she dives into the weakness after Quýnh when she adds, “I have, too.” She kisses Quýnh again, still gentle as a snowflake caught in her eyelashes. “We can find each other again.”

“We always do,” Quýnh says. It’s almost a question, and she sees the guilt flash through Andromache’s eyes. But those eyes focus on Quýnh again, Quýnh right here and present and solid and needing.

“We always do,” Andromache confirms. “We always will.”

Quýnh lets herself touch now, puts her hand on Andromache’s face and reminds herself of its hills and valleys, landscape unchanged over the centuries Quýnh missed it. Quýnh presses her weight into Andromache’s body and Andromache takes it, holds Quýnh and braces her.

They won’t have sex. There will be time for that later. Quýnh doesn’t think she could take it just now, that much close touch with so many sensations. She isn’t ready for that yet. But Andromache slides her palm against Quýnh’s and Quýnh wraps her fingers around Andromache’s.

They brush their lips together, whisper-soft, and another piece of Quýnh is reborn. She is coming back in increments, helped along by the people who love her. Andromache said she gave up searching for Quýnh, but parts of Quýnh still haven’t been found. Andromache may be the only one who can find those. And now, together in this room with the warmth of their family outside the door, Quýnh knows Andromache will never truly give up that search.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://biblionerd07.tumblr.com)


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